Who ya' gonna believe?

The technologists? Or the corporate spokespersons? (Hint: I've already applied for an absentee ballot.) [via Michael Geist's Internet Law News]

Activists Show Alleged Vote Machine Flaws

Using a laptop computer, she [Bev Harris] demonstrated what she said were easy hacks to software by Ohio-based Diebold Inc., which is used in central tabulators that will count votes Nov. 2 in some 1,000 counties. Harris contended that hackers could easily change vote totals by entering the database through a backdoor method. She also claimed hackers could enter the standard way after obtaining passwords, then manipulate vote totals and cover their tracks.

"It's astonishingly easy to get in," she said. "There's no security whatsoever."

Programmer Jeremiah Akin, of Riverside, Calif., showed what he said was a flaw in software by Oakland, Calif.-based Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., that would allow a hacker to switch votes by people voting in Spanish or another foreign language.

Spokesmen for Diebold and Sequoia strongly denied the claims....

Up to 50 million voters will use touchscreen machines in November; even more will have their votes tabulated electronically by central vote tabulators.

Updated by Hugh at 9/28/2004 17:26 Eastern time:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a nice page here that should allow one to determine what voting machine they will be facing on November 2 and the strengths and weaknesses of each machine. Unfortunately, the link to the Location list seems to be broken, so I had to determine the type machine I'll be using by looking at a combination of my county's web site and then the voting machine manufacturer's web site. I was thus able to determine the appropriate (for my polling place) machine-specific information on the EFF site, where I read the following:

Past Problems

June 2004: New Jersey. In Morris County, a glitch with the voting machines left the results of the election unknown. A back-up system also malfunctioned.

March 1997: Nevada. In Clark County (Las Vegas), numerous problems occurred from "poll workers miscalculating the number of names on voting rosters, voters who said they accidentally pushed the wrong buttons, and … unrecorded voters who huffed away from polls without casting ballots."